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Gibbet Road

6/12/2007
The person who informed the public yesterday about the Gibbet Road was partially right and partially wrong. It was indeed the road to the gallows. However the correct pronunciation (taken directly from the dictionary) is pronounced jib'-et. Which means, a gallows with a projecting arm at the top, from which the bodies of criminals were suspended and sometimes left for public display. I believe a tree was used on our Gibbet Rd and I am told that it is still there today. I was raised in the area and rode my horse down that road since the early '60s and we always referred to the road as "The Gibbet Road".

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about as accurate as it could be, without living during those times. I too have live here for some time, and remember it as she has describe it. It is kind of peculiar how history gets changed with the influx of people coming into the area. By the way "Bambi" I hope your 50th anniversary tomorrow (June 14th) is pleasurable, happy and enjoyable. Now I have you wondering. LOL.

That certain offfshuls thought the name of the road should be changed to "GIBLET". From whom are they trying to hide? Not all history is pretty... and I would rather live on a road with history than a road of innards!

"Do Not tease dragons - for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

Hear, hear! WileyCoyote. I'm constantly asking people (including my own children) "do you even know what a Giblet is"? Some really don't know! LOL It's amazing how the effort to change the name took such a strong hold.
I love HISTORY.

i used to think the same thing! Giblet! even used to pronounce it as such. every time ide see the sign ide think of thanksgiving and Giblet gravy being poured all over my Turkey and Oyster dressing lol.

i think the actule meaning became used as a metaphor, as in the name used is "Gibbet"

"Gibbet" is a term applied to several different devices used in the capital punishment of criminals and/or the deterrence of potential criminals.

Yes, gibbet means a hanging tree. But I can't find anywhere in any records that show anything close to a hanging tree in Pritchardville, at any time. That's not to say someone wasn't hanged there at some point, whether pre-Revolution, during the Revolution or thereafter, but I daresay this old wives' tale is getting out of hand.

I welcome proof, in any reference short of these blogs, that shows a hanging took place anywhere in Bluffton at any time. They did, I'm sure, but I have never seen a reference.

Please don't tell me your grandfather told you such-and-such. That is not, I'm sorry to say, good enough. Poorboy is right. Stories handed down through the generations, into a growing area of newcomers, change rapidly. The kernel of truth is quickly, and completely, swallowed up by the cob of make-believe.

There is history out there. But without references, well, it's just a neat story....

There are neat stories, hand-me-downs from past generations. That's cool and valuable, in its own way, as a gauge for how a community wishes to think of itself or its forebears. But every town, everywhere, has a hanging tree (Bluffton has at least two that I know of), just like every town has a dead-man's curve and a haunted old house.

My point is that a lot of these old stories are simply that, handed down generation to generation, with a kernel of truth undoubtedly in there somewhere, but with the details (and even the locations, certainly the trees) blurred beyond recognition. You'll note that even Ms. Perry, in her fantastic book, says "tradition holds" that a British spy was hanged at Arm Oak. It's a great story, but....

Somebody indeed might have been hanged on or near Gibbet road 150 years ago. But it's just as likely it's an 1800s' mangling of the word giblet from a chicken farm nearby, a word corrupted from the Gullah language (everyone pronounces it Gib-Bet, so isn't it likely it's not named for a gibbet?), a misspelling of a French settler's last name, or was named for a tree with a hole in a branch that someone 200 years ago thought someone 400 years ago would have used to hang a bandit from.

Can you imagine the consternation if it was, say, a Revolutionary war HERO who was hung, instead of a spy? Or the different response if it was a Confederate War Hero? Sometimes there are reasons history is obscured in the tellings... some as varied as "whose side are/were you on?" and some as involved as the whole "to the victor goes the spoils - and the right to tell history the way they choose" or even political correctness.

Roadrunner is very involved in our geneology right now, and some of the things we took as historical fact - hmmm, maybe not so much. Or maybe the census reports on our origins are skewed for reasons that we do not know (or, know too well - warrants may have been issued, after all!). Many folks who came in thru Ellis Island had their origins mangled by people who didn't know any better - or those origins were purposefully obscured.

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